Social media, mobile and location-based marketing are gaining ground among affiliate marketers, according to a new study by digital marketing company, bigmouthmedia.

The 2011 affiliate marketing survey, “Exploring Online Affiliate Marketing Trends”, asked UK-based affiliates for their views and opinions to reveal how affiliate marketing is performing and where it is going.

The survey revealed that Digital Window remains the most popular network – 57.97% of respondents said it as their first choice. This was followed by Tradedoubler and Commission Junction. 

A growing number of affiliate marketers think Google has designs on becoming the largest affiliate (71.5% of respondents in the 2011 survey compared to 56% in 2010). And, 31.4% of respondents see Google Panda as having an impact on their business.

Affiliate marketers are concerned about commission attribution, with 50.8% saying they believe modelling threatens their industry – up from 34% in 2010. 

The most popular marketing channels are mobile marketing (32.6%) and location-based marketing (40.7%). 

The two fastest growing channels are social media (up from zero in 2010 to 27.2% in 2011) and location-based marketing, which has seen a 12.4% increase. 

Video advertising has fallen slightly, down from 15.2% in 2010 to 13.3.% in 2011.   

In the digital mix, search engine optimisation (SEO) and content marketing remain the most popular at 63.2% 

Multichannel approaches are gaining popularity among affiliate marketers, with 40% opting for combining two or three different methods to reach their audiences and 28% using four or more.

Andrew Girdwood, media innovations director at bigmouthmedia said: “Marketers can learn a lot from affiliates. They’re often quicker to test and learn than large brands or clumsy ‘build first, think about the media later’ agencies.”

Posted by 

Nicola Carpenter